5 Were you a party animal?In grade 11 I did a kind of anthropological study of teenage partying activities. Perhaps the most embarrassing moment associated with that brief foray into the party scene was the scornful look I got from a popular girl sitting in front of me on the bus when I happily reported to my best friend that I had been recruited as a designated driver.

6 Were you considered a flirt? Alas, no.

7 Were you in band, orchestra, or choir?I really should have been. I figured out far too late that joining choir with all one’s friends meant a guaranteed allocation to third-period lunch (since rehearsals took place in the second half of the 75-minute period), thus eliminating the risk of being the only person in one’s social group with fourth-lunch, a fate that meant either nibbling on pretzels in the library or else sharing a table with the foreign exchange students.

8 Were you a nerd? Kind of. I was not popular, but I also carefully avoided joining an identifiable group of fellow nerds. Someone with no friends is vulnerable and despised, but someone with a group of nerdy friends is much, much worse off.

9 Did you get suspended/expelled? No.

10 Can you sing the fight song?Introductory chant: "Deep in the heart of the London jungle you can hear the Sabres rumble – Ooh! Ah! Ooh! Ah! Ooh! Ah! Ooh! Ah!" Followed by (to the tune of "It’s a Long Way to Tipperary"): "We’re the sabres, the might sabres! We’re the red white and gold. We’ve no fear here, we’ll never falter! We are daring, we are bold!" (Shall I go on? Because I totally could.)

11 Who was your favorite teacher? The most memorable was my Grade 11 English teacher. We were required to keep a "work diary" recording our impressions of the classes and the assigned readings, and I used mine to launch an apologetic manifesto, a response to certain unguarded theological statements she made during the first week of class. To wit: she claimed that the "fruit" in the Garden of Eden story represented sex, and that the "Fall" was more of a natural process of growth and learning. Heresy!

12 School mascot? Sabre-tooth tiger.

13 Did you go to Prom? I went to my grad dance wearing a black Laura Ashley dress. It would actually be quite fashionable today, that dress, with its dark background picked out with fuchsia and white flowers. I was one of two people wearing it that night, a function of the fact that the prom-dress-to-person ratio in Canada is approximately one tenth of what it is in the U.S.

14 If you could go back and do it over, would you?My BFF and I have often endorsed the theory that if we went back to high school and did it over again, knowing what we do today, the experience would be exactly the same. It doesn’t matter how confident or intelligent you are, how aware of the stupidity of high-school politics – the environment is stronger than the individual: it would chew me up and spit me out within a week.

15 What do you remember most about graduation? The guy who came up to me after the awards ceremony to gush about how "All of us are going to be working for you someday!" I often reflect on how stunned he would be today at my total lack of status and earning power.

16 Where were you on senior skip day? Huh?

17 Did you have a job your senior year?I worked at the local farmer’s market, ringing in apples and bagging carrots. It was meant to be a job that would provide lots of summer hours so I could save for university, but when I refused to work on the May 24 weekend, my boss didn’t fire me, but simply kept me on at a minimal number of hours until I went away the following September. (It’s okay, though – it was a memorable weekend and worth the sacrifice.)

18 Where did you go most often for lunch?The options were (1) cafeteria (embarrassment capital of the world, as Angela Chase would say), (2) mall, (3) my friend Felicia’s house (permissible only when she was in the mood for sharing her mom). Mostly I stuck to option #1, and suffered accordingly.

19 Have you gained weight since then?Only about forty pounds or so.

20 What did you do after graduation? I went to university.

21 When did you graduate? 1990.

22 Who was your Senior prom date? I went with my newly acquired group of friends: 12 girls (evenly divided into 6 virgins and 6 non, and seated accordingly) and 1 guy, who danced with everyone in turn and had far more fun than any of the rest of us.

23 Are you going / did you go to your 10 year reunion? The 20-year reunion is closer at hand, and I won’t be going if I can help it.

24 Who was your home room teacher?In 1994, I decided to test my memory and see if I could reconstruct my entire high-school schedule including year, course, period, and teacher. I managed to get almost all of them. Apparently now my brain has replaced that information with competing theories of infant sleep-training and the exact ages at which my children met all their milestones.

25 Who will repost this after you?How about Jenn and Slouching Mom. Are you guys up for it?

I'm with Magpie. I must have gone to high school, because I'm pretty sure that, at the time, a high school diploma was more or less required to get into college. But it made very little impression on me one way or the other. And, no doubt, vice versa.

wow. why is it that it seems all the good bloggers seemed to have hated high school? oh. maybe it's that sensitive and thoughtful thing. I love what you said about the environment being stronger than the individual. Not that I like that it's true, but it probably is.

At the risk of being heretical, isn't the fruit at least partly about Sex? To me it has always represented Knowledge and the loss of Innocence. The loss of virginity and induction into the world of grown-up sex is a big part of that. I don't, however, claim that I could argue theology with you, so I bow to your superior knowledge.

Nomo - Well, this is my teenaged theology, remember. I'd say now that sexuality is one element of the symbolism of the story, though I'd still resist so reductive an analysis. (And my hubby is a proponent of the heresy that the Fall was really a Rise, but I've never been fully convinced by that argument.)

The phrase anthropological study of teenage partying activities made me laugh. It sounds like something from Alice, I think.

Fight songs? The whole concept seems so unCanadian.

I feel like I missed out on something by not hating high school. Alas, I was even class president. However, I am not at ALL nostalgic for the experience and have zero interest in Facebooking all my old classmates.

I was a big dork during highschool. Possibly the biggest. And here is my All Time Most Horrible High School Suffering Story: I was told in grade nine that I had been voted the ugliest girl in school. And yet! Happy adult, very little scarring.

I had the same thing with one best friend and a third who changed over the years. We're still good friends.

But as to everything else? Gym? After grade 9? Who would do such a thing? Prom? Who would do such a thing? I ate lunch in the stairs, avoided the popular party kids, didn't have senior skip day, and generally made my own way.

Suffer? No. I wasn't miserable in high school, nor was it my high point. It just was.

I really like your answers. I have the same feeling that if I was given a second chance I would do it all exactly the same.The power of highschool is stronger than any of us. Or maybe it is just the stupidity of adolescence that is so strong.